A SLIGHT CHANCE of a shower or thunderstorm will
exist over far northeastern Trinity County this afternoon and
evening. Otherwise, dry weather is expected during the next seven
days. High temperatures will generally be in the 80s to around 90
across the interior through Tuesday, followed by a warming trend
during the middle of the upcoming work week. Meanwhile, cooler
conditions will persist near the coast due to an onshore marine
influence. (National Weather Service)

AV VILLAGE MEETING TODAY AT 4 (Sunday, July 14)

This is a reminder of the upcoming AV Village gathering at Lauren's on Sunday. A handful of locals will be reading snippets of their writings. I think it will be very interesting and entertaining, and I hope to see you there.

Refreshments will be provided for socializing beginning at 4:00 and the readings will begin around 4:30. I have attached our poster about the event.

Also here are a few announcements that may interest you:

We have a volunteer training on Sunday July 14th 3 to 4 pm* (right before our monthly gathering) at Lauren’s — we ask each volunteer to complete a short training, please RSVP with our coordinator (andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com) if you can attend, thank you!

Book conversation - The current book is still “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande as the June meeting was postponed to Monday August 26th 11am.

”Morning Mile,” meet up at the High School track on Saturday or Sunday morning for a walk — if interested contact Suzy Miller maps@pacific.net

Contact the coordinator (andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com) if you: want to get the newsletter by email each month.

There are local events or info you would like us to add to our Events Calendar:
https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events.

You would like us to email you a list of upcoming AV Village and other local events on our calendar — the email will go out each Sunday.

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

Sweet and dreamy, Ariel is a sensitive soul. She was a little shy at first during her photo session, but we know with some TLC she will blossom. Ariel takes treats with a very gentle mouth. Her coat is silky soft, and her personality is charming. Ariel is a BIG fan of couches--and she would love to get acquainted with yours! Ariel is a 4 year old, spayed female, mixed breed dog who weighs a svelte 55 pounds.

Desire is a 7 month old, spayed female, Tortie kitten. She is friendly and sweet. This little social butterfly will be a great companion for a child looking for his or her next best friend. Like most kittens, Desire has a playful, frisky side, so lots of toys will be a must in her new home.

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah, and adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. To see photos and bios of the shelter's adoptable animals, please visit online at: www.mendoanimalshelter.com or visit the shelter. Join us the second Saturday of every month for our "Empty the Shelter" pack walk and help us get every dog out for some exercise! For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

JUPITER & THE MOON OVER THE FIRE PIT

(Photo by Dick Whetstone)

VELMA'S FARM STAND AT FILIGREEN FARM

11750 Anderson Valley Way in Boonville, California

Now Open

Blueberries

Peaches

Plums

Olive oil

Herbs and flowers

CITY HAS TO CORRECT PRESS RELEASE — Hospitality House Never Asked For Emergency Winter Shelter Funds

You can't receive county funds if you don't ask - once again the Hospitality House has shown how inept they are - and they've run the winter Emergency Shelter for the past 12 years! It turns out they NEVER asked the county for money to run a winter emergency shelter - there's compassion for you.

The reason given in the press release (which can be viewed on the Fort Bragg City website) is that the county pulled the funding. A Board member posted that the county had stopped the funding.

Not so. The county has a issued a correction stating that.

There is potentially funding available for this winter's Extreme Weather Shelter.

Refusing to run this shelter will leave 12 people a night outside in the coastal winter storms. It's a tough program to run & I know because I ran it for many many years, but it is an essential act of compassion and humanity to bring these folk (& their dogs) inside.

And the funding is there to do it. Please ask Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center to get these county dollars and work with the faith community to open the shelter.

You can write (mark it attention Board of Directors) at admin@mendocinochc.org

(via MendocinoSportsPlu)

A Q&A WITH THE LATE, GREAT JIM BOUTON

by Dave Zirin

My friend Jim Bouton has passed away at the age of 80. A former 20-game winner and All-Star from the New York Yankees, Bouton was best known for the 1970 classic “Ball Four,” the most influential sports book of the 20th century. “Ball Four” told, with innocence and joy, about the real day-to-day life of a Major League Baseball player, warts and all. It included stories of Yankees legend Mickey Mantle showing up to the park hung over, and ballplayers, out of curiosity and boredom, having kissing contests with each other on the team bus. Bouton paid a heavy price for writing “Ball Four”: being shunned from the game that he loved. But after Ball Four, sports hagiography was never the same. I was fortunate enough to speak on several panels with Bouton—including one in Boston with historian Howard Zinn, where Bouton and Zinn, longtime admirers of each other, met for the first time—and through our interaction, we were able to set up this interview. It first appeared in my 2007 book, “Welcome to the Terrordome.”

—Dave Zirin

Dave Zirin: In the early ’60s, you’re an All-Star pitcher for the Yankees; in the late ’60s, you’re writing this incredibly transgressive book, and I just wanted to know if you ever thought about what role the 1960s as an era played in shaping your consciousness and outlook about the world.

Jim Bouton: Well, I think the ’60s affected everybody. Part of what was really good about it was that it just called everything into question—all the assumptions, all the rules, all the ways of doing things, and tossed them all up in the air, and forced everybody to take another look at questioning authority, and you know, it was really a necessary thing to do because we had just sort of inched our way and then leapfrogged into Vietnam without a lot of public discussion about it, taking the word of a handful of leaders….

That was the driving force. That and racism. Blacks were challenging the white status quo, and so there was all that going on. I don’t think any of us at the time—certainly not myself—thought this was going to be some sort of pivotal time in American history. When you’re living through history, it just seems like the most natural thing in the world. I don’t think it occurred to me that, “Gee, all these other people are kicking up a fuss, maybe I should write a book that does the same thing.” That thought never occurred to me, but you’re part of your environment. I don’t know if I would have or could have even thought of writing “Ball Four” during the Eisenhower years. Who knew? Who knows?

DZ: Speaking of the ’60s, I just interviewed someone who has wonderful memories of you—Dennis Brutus.

JB: Dennis is the greatest man I’ve ever met. I met Dennis because he was executive secretary of SANROC—the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee is what SANROC stood for. I was first contacted by a white weight lifter from their group. They contacted me because I had signed a petition in support of the Black South African athletes who were not able to—not allowed to—compete for spots on the South African Olympic team. The country of South Africa was about 80 percent Black and they were being represented by a 100 percent white team, and this petition was appealing to me as a Yankee baseball player and professional athlete in the United States, saying, “Athlete to athlete, is this fair? Not fair? We need fellow athletes to stand up for us and change this injustice.” If athletics means anything, it means fairness and it seemed like the simplest thing to do was to sign this petition—a no-brainer! And I just thought I’d be one of hundreds of signatures on it. But I wasn’t. It turned out to be about half a dozen, and very few of them were white. They wanted to have this press conference to announce that this group would be going to Mexico City to lobby the American Olympic officials to support a ban of the South African team until they fielded a racially representative team.

DZ: What was your impression of Dennis Brutus?

JB: Well, Dennis was such a special person. It was such an obvious outrage, and yet here was a man who was very composed, very restrained, a beautiful speaker and writer. Even his penmanship was right out of the 1800s, with this elaborate flowing script. Even just a note from Dennis was really something. He had a sense of calm and reason and was therefore exactly the kind of opponent they must have hated because they couldn’t point to him as a screamer, a table-thumper, a rabble-rouser, or any other bullshit, you know. He was more cultured than they were, more refined than they were.

DZ: In the 1960s you had interactions with Muhammad Ali. What were your impressions of Ali and what do you think he meant to his time?

JB: I think Muhammad Ali…was one of the great men in history, and I don’t mean sports history—one of the great men in history. He was internationally beloved, for all the right reasons. He took a risk with his career, with his life. He put it all on the line and took a huge risk, paid the price, went to jail, and got his title taken away from him. Here was a guy willing to go to prison for his beliefs. How many of those are there around? Even today we’ve got absolutely gutless politicians, [who] like this guy Paul Bremer [former viceroy of occupied Iraq] now tells us in his book that he needed more troops at the time. Well, bullshit. Where was he when he should have said it? He’s no Muhammad Ali. What a lesson for people, to see this asshole Bremer behaving cowardly, with a history of people like Muhammad Ali who never behaved cowardly. So they’re not in the same category of human being as far as I’m concerned. That goes for all of those politicians who were gutless and craven and blind. I read about [JFK’s defense secretary] Robert McNamara going to go to Vietnam and find out what went wrong. He was what was wrong. Him personally. He doesn’t need to go anywhere to discover that. All those lives lost to find an “honorable” way out. It’s disgusting to think of those lives lost.

DZ: So you write “Ball Four,” and the ownership of Major League Baseball and a lot of players lose their minds when it comes out. What caused the mass panic and insanity? Why do you think your book spurred that?

JB: I don’t know. I think for them it was just one more nail in the coffin, just more questioning of authority. The whole edifice was shaking from all the assaults on it and this was just one more in stance—gee whiz, even in baseball! Not even baseball can be sacrosanct! That was part of it. I think baseball, football—they’ve always felt the need to be patriotic, to be on the side of America and might, supporting wars no matter what, and so that conservative bent, to have a break in their ranks: This was a little too much for them. And the truth of it is they hadn’t read the damn book. They would have realized if they had read it that the things that they claimed bothered them were just in the context of a larger story. Baseball fans easily absorbed this concept. So many people picked up that book to read it and get angry about it, started reading it, and were saying, “What the hell are they making such a big deal about?” I mean, that was the tone of 99 percent of the letters I received. “I read your book, I kept waiting for this, and waiting for that, and I never saw it. There was nothing in the book that turned me off of the game or the people involved or anything.” It was just a love letter. It’s just the opposite of what baseball was saying. The commissioner [Bowie Kuhn] said I had “done the game a grave disservice.”

DZ: There is a quote from David Halberstam about “Ball Four” that it is a book “so deep in the American vein it cannot be called a sports book.” How can it be the harmless “love letter” you describe and also have such an impact?

JB: You know, some of the things that were written about “Ball Four” are almost too deep for me. Sometimes when you create a piece of art, you think you’re doing this thing over here, and it turns out when you’re all done you’ve done this other thing over there without realizing it. It was only years later when I understood that my closely kept diary became an important piece of journalism because who could imagine it? But that wasn’t my intention. I wasn’t thinking of writing a revolutionary book or anything like that. We knew that the book was going to raise a fuss and that there were some things in there that had never been said in sports before, but basically we weren’t trying to do that.

DZ: But the fans liked the book?

JB: Not exactly at first. When the book came out, I was pitching for the Astros, and we were playing the circuit, we were in New York City to play the Mets. And my mom and dad were going to come from New Jersey to see me; I would only come to town a couple times a summer so we got them tickets to the ball game, and we were going to go to dinner after that ball game at Shea. So anyway the game goes on, and I get called in to the game, I get called in to relieve at Shea Stadium. So when they announced my name—this was right after Dick Young had written three consecutive columns about what a jerk I was. I was a social leper, Judas, and Benedict Arnold, and the book hadn’t been out yet, it was just basically excerpts and “Oh, he said all these terrible things,” so the fans were reacting to sportswriters’ early attacks on me, particularly from Dick Young.

So when I got called into the game, everybody at Shea Stadium booed. It was awful, being a Jersey kid and growing up in the New York area, to be roundly booed by a stadium full of people. It was pretty awful. After the game was over, I went outside and my mom was crying. She said, “Jim, maybe you shouldn’t have written that book!” I said, “Mom, the book’s not out yet, when it comes out you’d better read it, you’ll realize it’s not a bad book, this will all blow away, it’s only temporary, you’ve just gotta hang in there a little while longer.”

DZ: The part of the book baseball executives flogged you for was when you talked about Mickey Mantle, his drinking, and his, at times, prickly personality. I wanted to ask you, on the record, what your memories of Mickey Mantle were, and if you could talk a little about your last contact with him before he passed.

JB: I always had mixed emotions about Mickey. I liked one side of him very much, the teammate side. He was a great teammate, a lot of fun to be around, and great to have in the dugout. He played when he was injured, and he’d break a leg to win a ball game for you. If you were ever in a foxhole, you’d want somebody like Mickey in there with you to just keep going. Unlike Alex Rodriguez, who’d want to get in the other guy’s foxhole and hide.

But anyway, Mickey was a great teammate, he was a lot of fun, always joking around, telling jokes, playing practical jokes. So that part, I loved him. But then I would see him being rude to kids, telling them to get the hell out of there, slamming windows down on their pencils. God, I would cringe when he would do that. It wasn’t necessary. Just tell the kids you’ll do it later or say, “Hey, how you doin’?” sign a couple autographs, and then move on. There’s no reason to be nasty about it. And I’d see some sportswriters walk over to him for an interview, and he’d give them a look that would almost crack them in two. I thought he could have handled that a lot better.

He always said he was going to die young. Well, so what? There’s a lot of people out there with some disease and they think they might die, it doesn’t mean that you can mistreat people. It was a lack of perspective that not just Mickey had but a lot of guys. Take Roger Maris: He’s young, he’s healthy, he’s getting paid a lot of money, and he may or may not break Babe Ruth’s home run record. How much fun is that? You can’t say, as Maris did in 1961, “I don’t care whether I break Babe Ruth’s record,” and then lose your hair. You either care or you don’t care. But in any case, they could never step back and see, “Gee, I’m young, I’m healthy, I’ve got a great job, I’m making a lot of money, kids look up to me, what else do I want from my life at this stage?” Guys in their twenties just had no perspective. Both of them died too young, which is a damned shame because most older ballplayers realize they did have a good life, and have that perspective they never had when they were younger. I think Roger and Mickey would be the same today.

DZ: And you sort of got a taste of that with Mickey Mantle’s last contact with you, right?

JB: Yeah, it was—I think it was 1995, Mickey’s son Billy passed away. I sent him a note just telling him how badly I felt about Billy, and I had a nice memory of him running around the clubhouse in spring training, a polite little boy. And I also wrote in the note, “I’d like to take this moment to tell you that I hope you’re feeling okay about ‘Ball Four’,” that I never wrote it to hurt anybody, and that I always considered it an honor to be his teammate. I just wanted to say that to him. I sent this note to him, just a couple of lines. I never expected to hear back from him, Mickey’s not the kind of guy that ever reached out in that way.

Then about ten days later I walked into my office and my secretary is standing by the answering machine, and she said, “I want you to play this one for yourself” and I pressed the Play button, and it was Mickey in his Oklahoma twang. “Hey, Jim, this is Mick. Thank you for your note about Billy, I appreciate it. I’m OK about “Ball Four”; it never bothered me that much. And one more thing—I want you to know that I’m not the reason you don’t get invited back for Old Timers’ Day. I heard that going around and it’s not true. So anyway, thanks again, Bud.”

DZ: How did it feel when the Jim Bouton ban was lifted and you were eventually able to get back to Old Timers’ Day and don the uniform again in 1998?

JB: It was one of those overwhelming days, emotionally. The reason I was back was because my son Michael had written a letter to The New York Times—a Father’s Day sort of letter to the editor telling the Yankees that Old Timers’ Day was always a time for families and that he loved it when I was a player, he loved being part of it, and our family was always a part of Old Timers’ Day and we had lost Laurie the year before [Jim’s daughter, Laurie Bouton, died in a car accident] and he said, so it’s time to invite my dad back; he could use it—he could use all the help he can get right now.

It was just a beautiful letter. And The New York Times used it as their Father’s Day piece. They got a picture of Mickey and me, and a picture of Laurie and me, and they ran that—what choice did the Yankees have but to invite me back? So they did, and when I went back it was overwhelmingly emotional. I wasn’t sure how the players would respond to me, and I wasn’t sure how the fans would respond to me. These were Old Timers’ Day fans, these were Mickey Mantle fans, I was the guy who wrote those things about The Mick—how would they respond to me? And then there was the reason I was back in the first place—it was because Laurie had died, so I’m there for sympathy reasons, and I was proud of my son Michael for having written such a beautiful letter, so the whole thing was just one emotion after another. Of course, the first response of my teammates was great; they came over and hugged me and the guys were kidding around, it seemed just like old times, like I had just won my twentieth. So it was nice to be back. A couple of guys turned their backs on me, but the rest of the guys were great. And then the fans were marvelous. I was just washed away.

COUNTY TO PURCHASE FORMER JEHOVAH’S WITNESS CHURCH for combo First Responder Mental Health Training and Sheriff’s Substation in Redwood Valley. (Items placed on the agenda based on recommendation from the Measure B Advisory Committee last week.)

Supervisors Agenda July 16, 2019:

Item 5c: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Approval of Allocation of up to $278,000 of Measure B Funds for the Purchase of Real Property Located at 8207 East Road, Redwood Valley for a Regional Behavioral Health Training Facility/Mendocino County Sheriff Sub-Station (Sponsor: Executive Office)”

Related Item 5d: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Approval of Allocation of up to $150,000 of Asset Forfeiture Funds for the Purchase of Real Property, Located at 8207 East Road, Redwood Valley, and Approval of Transfer of Funds in the Amount of $150,000 From Sheriff Office Budget Unit 2310 Asset Forfeiture Balance to Measure B Capital Asset Budget Unit 1713 for a Regional Behavioral Health Training Facility/Mendocino County Sheriff Sub-Station (Sponsor: Sheriff-Coroner)”

EVENING CLOUDS, HOT & NO RAIN

(Photo by Harvey Reading)

MENDO AD HOC ELEPHANT SUGGESTS GIVING BIRTH TO FIVE CANNABIS MICE

Recommendations From The Cannabis Economic Development Ad Hoc Committee

The Cannabis Economic Development Ad Hoc [Committee] has been meeting with both County staff and industry leaders [since January of 2019] to look at the current California cannabis market, the economic future and long-term growth potential in Mendocino County.

The Ad Hoc is currently working with industry leaders on developing a countywide vision and strategic goals for cannabis economic development over the next 3-5 years. The Ad Hoc anticipates returning to the Board with the proposed vision and goals within the next few months.

Below are the initial five recommendations of the Ad Hoc.

Recommendations

Direct Planning and Building Services to assess the feasibility of developing a cannabis business innovation zone and identify potential sites.

Update the County Temporary Use Regulations regarding special events to streamline permitting and include cannabis events.

Direct Planning and Building Services bring back potential sites throughout the County with proper zoning that could allow scaling up to larger than 10,000 square feet of cannabis cultivation. Potentially increasing the size of cultivation greater than one acre with multiple permits if supported with sufficient water and State approvals. Evaluate if biomass production warrants increased cultivation allowances.

Recommend the County work in partnership with Humboldt and Trinity counties to develop a three County Emerald Triangle advocacy group to brand and market the region.

Develop a private/public partnership with cannabis cultivation and facilities businesses to fund future code changes that will require additional California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents to support industry operational desires not currently allowed under Mendocino County Code.

Supervisors Ted Williams and Dan Gjerde

Cannabis Economic Development Ad Hoc Committee

ED NOTES

STARTLING news from marijuana world arrived on Friday night's BBC News in a doc about upwards of 150 illegal Los Angeles dispensaries doing business right out in the open, and virtually indistinguishable from the legal dispensaries. The illegals, unburdened by pesky licensing fees and sales taxes, are of course much cheaper than the legals, and there's a very big rub with legalization. The good news for Emerald Triangle growers, including those here in the Anderson Valley, is that product prices are rising. Our informants tell us they expect to get $1500 a pound this year, more for quality dope.

IT HADN'T OCCURRED to me before a Boonville woman mentioned that she was worried about the reduction in taxable property because so much local acreage has been removed from the tax base via conservation easements, thus directly reducing financial support for the local schools. The easement dodge commenced with the arrival of the new gentry, circa 1980, with even smallholders quickly agreeing to preserve their land in its natural state as, in the prevalent delusion, the environmental benefits are muy importante. We're going to try to discover how much of the local tax base has been removed by conservation easements. Landowners certainly get nice tax breaks, but the benefits to the rest of us are negligible, the schools are shorted. Unless one thinks conservation easements are crucial to beat back the multiplicities of accumulating environmental disasters, these particular set asides, objectively, are just another tax hustle enjoyed only by the privileged.

THE CENSUS, in my experience, has always been farcical. That the figures returned by the part-time census takers are the basis for crucial federal reimbursements is at least mildly humorous. Whether or not a citizenship question is or is not included wouldn't seem to matter, since a yes or no is impossible to verify. Living arrangements that depart from mom, pop, and 2.2 children, domiciled in a stand alone house, fatally confuses the census taker. I remember trying to explain the number of people holed up on my place mystifiying the kid doing the polling. "Do you mean you, your wife, your brother, your sister, three children, and five un-related persons live here? Who are the five un-related persons and what is their relation to you, the home owner?" The census kid pawed through his forms trying to find applicable boxes he could check off, but he's short categories, as is America anymore. Tell you what, my lad, let's pretend the unexplained people aren't here, and leave it at that. He agreed, and off he went down the street to the next nest of confusion.

INS SCARES are not unknown in Mendocino County or the Anderson Valley. The word that la migra is in the area circulates fast, and children are kept at home rather than risk capture at school. Which is a helluva note and a major outrage that a large part of our population lives with fear so intense, so constant. I think the INS ought to focus on the deportation of criminals, not ordinary, productive people without whom the flimsy economy of this county and many others would collapse.

I MAY BE the only person left in Boonville who remembers an INS raid circa '73, the only one I know of ever in the Anderson Valley. And I remember it because the screaming and general 4am tumult woke me up as it occurred two hundred yards down the street at a house directly across from the elementary school. I didn't know the Mexican family living there, but by the time I arrived at the pre-dawn scene the neo-gestapo proceedings had ended with the apparent arrest of several adult males. No local cops were involved, and I never could find out what had happened as the rest of the people in the home had also disappeared. And this sorry episode was fifty years ago, long before the Fox News Warriors began their rampages.

MEDIA are so despised that they've got to give themselves awards. I've belatedly noticed that David Muir of ABC News claims he has won "Four Edward R. Murrow Awards." It says so after Muir concludes his nightly telecasts, wrapping them up with pure mawk — a soldier surprising his kids at a high school event; a little girl "the youngest ever" climbing a cliff face; a one-armed baseball player. Edward R. Murrow's descendants must have raffled off his name because there's no way the real Murrow would approve of Muir or any other tv news reader. I make this statement of the obvious because.… Well because Muir and the even more egregious Scott Simon of NPR seem symbolic of the times, that they're not only tolerated but celebrated. Don't get me started on Hannity who, even in my decrepitude, I dream of assaulting. "Hear that, Hannity? I catch you in Boonville… and… well… uh…"

OUTAGE TIPS

Editor:

Power outages due to wildfire prevention seem likely. Increased utility rates are looming. Maintenance and insurance costs for the electricity grid are skyrocketing and, according to people who should know, a resulting 50% or more rise in electricity rates may occur soon.

Installing solar panels looks like an investment to avoid steep utility rate increases. And, now, because of the threat of blackouts, a gateway and battery backup or gas generator should also be considered to allow independent operation from the grid during outages.

If you need some vital electricity services to continue during a prolonged blackout, you should consider asking a professional about the most cost-effective way to proceed.

“Where’s your passport?” the early morning shopper asks me at the Hillsdale, New York Farmers’ Market when she hears I’m from California. My driver’s license from the State of California keeps her from reading me the riot act and keeps her in her place, sassy though it is. New Yorkers, whether they live in urban or rural places tend to think of California as another country and the land that gave the nation Nixon, Reagan and Charles Manson. Oh yeah and the Warriors who haven’t ever looked as good in their eyes as the Knicks during their glory days.

Farmers’ Markets and small farms are thriving here and in other parts of Upstate New York and New England, though the growing season is much shorter here than in California and age-old dairy farms have been calling it quits in these parts.

The Hillsdale Farmers Market-a summer event-draws locals and tourists and seasonal residents from New York who come for the peace, the quiet and the authentic country feel of this region about as far from Boston as Manhattan. TVs are tuned to the Red Sox who beat the Yankees the other day and made locals happy.

Californians would fit in at the Saturday morning market. I certainly did, though I didn’t have a passport. My friends who live here half the year vouched for my integrity.

John, the beekeeper at Bish Bash Farm, is happy about the quality and the quantity of his honey and unhappy about the bears who come down from the hills, attack the hives, loot the honey and the honeycombs and take them back to the woods. “They get stung, but that doesn’t stop them,” John tells me. “My electric fence doesn’t always deter them either.” Still he has pounds of honey to sell.

Damon in beard and shoulder length hair makes all his income from the organic produce he grows at Hawk Dance Farm which he has operated in the black for the last ten years. “I spent 15 years planning to farm so I got it right,” he tells me. Damon doesn’t grow Swiss chard; he did but no one bought it so he gave it up. His zucchini-$3 a pound- is a winner and so is his Cauliflower-$4 a pound. He does all the work by hand. “I don’t have a tractor,” he tells me proudly. His vegetables are all on a drip system. By mid-August he’ll have corn and 30 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes. There are now no local tomatoes, not in Upstate New York and Massachusetts.

Eliza from Tuscany speaks English with an Italian accent. She’s learning how to make cheeses from goat and cow milk, and while it doesn’t make sense to me to leave Tuscany and come to this rural community it does to her. “You have to have passion and you have to take care of the details like you would take care of a baby,” she tells me. She has learned a lot and still has more to learn.

Hiroshi from Japan works at From the Ground Brewery and is learning how to make beer. The water is local and so are the grains and the hops. “Japan isn’t like the U.S.,” he says. “We don’t have small craft beers the way you have them here. People drink Sapporo and Kirin mostly.”

Marty from New York with a New York accent spends summers at his country home and shops at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market. “The produce is fucking expensive,” he tells me. “But what are you gonna do? The diversity is astounding, the location is perfect and the people are great.”

Well maybe. Manhattan Marty ought to get a passport to California and visit our farmers’ markets.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

They say that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. Does it? This and the idea of nemesis sounds tantamount to religious conviction. But I’m not religious. What do they say, that justice delayed is justice denied? And so events do unfold but it’s never timely, a shambolic process, never a neat and tidy movie ending, the good guys riding off triumphant, with justice adequately meted out.

So is there really some restorative agent working behind the scenes? Or is it just the usual normal working of things, the normal operation of natural laws intersecting with human nature and especially with that most human attribute of hubris.

You’ve seen it, people have a bit of success and it goes to their head, making them think they’re more capable than they really are. Or they pull off some shit, and they aren’t called to account, at least not right away.

Maybe what looks like nemesis is just people getting too far out over their skis. Maybe it’s simply a complex world that overwhelms people’s ability to cope, even the most powerful and wealthy. After all, other people have got contending interests and they react if they get stepped on. And, even if you fool some of the people some of the time, you can’t fool them all of the time as you can’t fully control information.

And so even if the Epsteins get away with heinous acts for a while, people get hurt and people talk and inevitably there’s blow-back.

The Deep State arranges things for the advantage of the monied elite and its enabling nomenklatura and it tries to control the narrative as to what’s what, and it tries to discredit malcontents, those people that get hurt by the machinations and who speak up.

But people have got eyes and ears and minds of their own and they act in their own defense. And events start to overwhelm even the most entrenched and well-armed and densely tentacled governments. And the same happens with the vampiric squid-like financial businesses currently strangling the productive economy. They can’t control everyone, everywhere.

And so it looks like nemesis. Will it engulf the Clintons and the Deep State? The timing may not suit us but It’s a matter of time.

RANDY NEWMAN: Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

BLAMING JERRY

Editor,

Conservatives, have you ever seen any more dirty, rotten, people than the Liberal Democrats? They are trying to blow up everything president Trump is doing. Makes me sick to my stomach. Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives are ridiculous idiots, or more than that.

It has been proven by some scientists that climate control is ridiculous, stupid, nonexisting situation. Certain people are feasting off of it and they make millions of dollars. If a Hollywood person stands up and says Ooh, it’s climate control, then 25% of the American people will go Ooh, it’s climate control. They don't know what they're talking about. The scientists do. And there is no climate control problem or global warming. Mother Nature will do what she will do. Al Gore who started this thing on global warming is a billionaire billionaire billionaire and he made all that money off of global warming while he lives in his two mansions back-to-back making more carbon fiber diesel electric than any human being in the world. He's a billionaire because he tricked the American people into believing global warming. Sad how people get away with this stuff and how people will follow anybody who stands up and says Ooh, this is wrong, or this is right, and the rest of them will follow. Makes me sick.

Do you conservative people realize how fortunate we are to have Donald Trump as president? I won't even address the Liberals, they are not worth it. We are lucky that Hillary Clinton did not get elected. What would this country be like if she got elected? I hate to imagine it. Donald Trump is the best president we have ever had in the history of the United States. He is a man, not a piece of goat shit like Barack Obama or Gavin Newsom or the rest of our so-called leaders who are just pieces of goat shit. President Trump is the best thing that ever happened to America. He will get a lot more done in the next four years too. I wish he could be a three termer. Who knows what will happen in the next four years?

Nancy Pelosi and that woman Cortez and the others who advise the illegals to get away from their legal status and get away from the ICE from getting deported. That's what they're doing. How can Americans deal with these people? Omar? Cortez? Harris? And the rest. And billionaires like Tom Steyer and George Soros who are wrecks for human beings. Let's put them all in an airplane and send them to Siberia and when they get hungry they could eat their money. Then they could call it greenback diarrhea after they eat all their money. They are worthless dirtbags of the earth and should be shipped out of here.

When these people come across the border they don't have any place to stay so they are just feasting on the American public. And the Democrats scream for open borders. They don't care about people getting killed or raped or whatever. They just want the votes. That's all. That's how cruel and vicious and no good they are.

These people are being financed by George Soros and Tom Steyer and Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom. They are so filthy rich they don't even know what to do with their money, they just carry it around in a shopping cart. The richest people in the world like Bloomberg and those kind of people put their money together to cause this mass evacuation to the United States so they can get the votes.

When a man is talking and nothing funny is going on and he keeps smiling while he's talking, that means he's a liar and a cheat and a dictator and every bad thing you can imagine and that man is Gavin Newsom. He warned all the illegals you can find to get out of town and away from ICE. These people would gladly cut your throat for a little advantage in the United States. He warns people who will kill you, rape, rob you, beat you to death or whatever. Not to say there's some good ones, but there's a lot of bad ones and Gavin Newsom is protecting them. We have a governor protecting killers and rapists of little children who rape and rob and steal, that's the governor we have. Uh-huh. He smiles when he talks.

Our wonderful Board of Supervisors can't even fix the potholes in the roads or cut the brush alongside the road. It's almost impossible to believe that these people are so broke with the taxes that we pay that they can't even take care of our roads. Now they have okayed the county almost $500,000 to fight climate control. Can you believe it? What are these people made of? Are they stupid robots or something? The supervisors okayed a half $1 million to fight climate control? Screwing around with mother nature. Unbelievable. That's what we have right here for local government. Unbelievable.

Jerry Brown used to be our ex-so-called Governor, the little dictator Moonbeam Brown. Legislation was passed to clean down the PG&E fire lines. PG&E wanted to do that but after it was passed Jerry Brown vetoed it. He said it wasn't necessary. And you see the results of that with the Sonoma County fires and Napa and everywhere. He's a citizen now, a public man. Not an official. So he can be sued. And if I was a victim of those fires I would certainly sue him. Jerry Brown is responsible, not PG&E so much.

God bless Donald Trump.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

ms notes: I’m no fan of Jerry Brown. But I have read the text of SB 1463 (2015-Moorlach, R-Orange County) which Governor Brown vetoed in 2015 which reads in main part (excluding boilerplate):

“This bill would require the [Public Utilities] commission, in consultation with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to prioritize areas in which communities are subject to conditions that increase fire hazards associated with overhead utility facilities when determining areas in which it will require enhanced mitigation measures for wildfire hazards posed by overhead electrical lines and equipment. The bill would require the commission to develop a definition of ‘enhanced mitigation measures’ for these purposes. The bill, as part of any findings supporting a decision to approve the boundaries for those areas, would require the commission to describe how the commission incorporated the concerns of local governments, fire departments, or both in determining those boundaries.”

In vetoing the bill the Governor’s Office said: "This bill requires the Public Utilities Commission to prioritize areas that have increased fire hazard associated with overhead utility facilities. Since May of last year [2014], the Commission and CalFire have been doing just that through the existing proceeding on fire-threat maps and fire-safety regulations. This deliberative process should continue and the issues this bill seeks to address should be raised in that forum."

SB 1463 was a somewhat duplicative effort to map high danger areas and develop ways to mitigate them. It did not explicitly require any line clearing, nor was PG&E denied permission to clear any lines. Nevertheless, it was dumb of Brown to veto it because every little bit helps.

PS. The amount of money the Supervisors wasted on “climate control” was $7500, not $500k.

KNOW YOUR OLIGARCHS (#24)

$36,100,000,000 (Phil Knight)

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20 Responses to "MCT: Sunday, July 14, 2019"

Eric Sunswheat July 14, 2019 at 3:01 am

RE: NO PASSPORT, FARM REPORT FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY.

And so Mendocino Farms checked into Houston. And not just with one store. The first Mendocino Farms – the company’s 28th location and first in Texas – opens July 18 at 5510 Morningside in Rice Village. That will be followed by a location in Uptown Park in the fall and a downtown outpost at 609 Main which should arrive before the end of the year. The company’s website also lists a Heights location coming in 2020. While the owners aren’t announcing other Houston branches just yet, they’re not hiding their admiration for the city and the possibility that Mendocino Farms will enjoy continued growth; they also are planning cracking the Dallas market.

What’s so special about another sandwich/salad fast-casual concept? For Mendocino Farms, plenty. The brand prides itself on dishes made with responsibly sourced ingredients from partnerships with local farmers and artisan food purveyors. Being a good neighbor is also important to the brand which supports local charities.

For a fast-casual concept, Mendocino Farms feels unusually hands-on with its “hospitality” hosts ready to help customers place their orders, hand out salad samples, and ferry dishes to the table.
The tenets of the company’s business ethos are emblazoned on the walls that remind guests to: eat happy, live sustainably, create choices. And though it’s not on the menu, Mendocino Farms declares “we sell happy.”

Not really, though. They appear to be giving it away free. In abundance.

Great, James. For you, moving backward is moving forward. That explains a lot. I see now why you are such a magaist. Together, you and the Comptche crowd could make quite a splash, or more likely, quite a splat!

“Hatred is best combined with Fear. Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful–horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear. The more he fears, the more he will hate.”

For years, the Hospitality Center board has had a habit of twisting their stories to fit their wants and for denying responsibility for the results of their deceptive actions. City Council members gave them everything they wanted. The required reports included no tangible results regarding public money spent in return, just like the departmental and contractor reports accepted at the Board of Supervisors meetings. So no one knew just what was happening with the money or how many people were being helped.

They were running the Emergency Shelter and asked their clients to gather near the Hospitality House to be taken to the churches for the night. There were clients who were drunk, on drugs, fighting, leaving used dirty needles, empty alcohol bottles and garbage in the alley and around the nearby businesses. They continually harassed the neighboring business owners and customers. When asked repeatedly to corral the men onto the property and to ensure that the area was kept clean, the Hospitality Center board said it wasn’t their responsibility. Rather than comply with their agreement, and take advantage of the many opportunities to make things right, they thumbed their noses at the public. That’s when the city made new rules for checking in to stay at the Emergency Shelter. The Hospitality Center board didn’t like it, especially because the intake location was moved from the Hospitality Center alley. It’s too difficult for them to change their ways and adhere to the terms of the new agreement (it also included some items based on Marbut report recommendations). No one has said “No” to the Hospitality Center before and they don’t like it. They tried to run the Emergency Shelter with its new system for a single season and decided it’s too much for them. And, as usual, they lied (about the funding this time) so they didn’t have to take responsibility for their own decision.

They never should have been allowed to expand as they have. They are inept and dishonest. Local government has to demand data when talking with them or they will continue to pull the wool over their eyes with their false presentations. Councilmember Morsell-Hayes and the City manager must have believed them about the funding without confirming their claims. I hope they learned that the Hospitality Board can’t be trusted to be truthful no matter how sweet and poor-me their conversations. Our 4th district supervisor has to take responsibility for the mess, too. Social services is a County, not a City, service and he did not attend most of the city council meetings when homeless issues and funding were on the agendas. I vote for a new organization to be formed to take over homeless services.

The Hospitality Center is also a subcontractor on the coast for the County’s privatized mental health system.

p.s. Drive by their Old Coast Hotel. It looks very run down now, badly in need of exterior paint and repair. Where will they find the money for the high maintenance costs on such an old building? I stopped donating money to the Hospitality Center long ago, preferring to help individual homeless people.

“I vote for a new organization to be formed to take over homeless services.”

I agree Mr. Wendal, hopefully it will not be the County’s privatized mental health system RQMC/RCS/RC3 who have taken over everything in Ukiah to do with homelessness and mental health. That goes for all their subcontractors who receive funding under the RQMC/RCS/RC3 unbrella, not just the Hospitality Center in Fort Bragg.

“Monopolies are bad because people get bad service for high prices. Competition is good because people get good service for competitive prices.”

Mr. Draper left out the part about low wages and poor benefits for the workers, but then he appears to me to be kaputalist scum of the highest order and cannot be expected to have concerns over such trivialities. I suspect his credo mimics the tenets of social darwinism (l.c. intentional, since the term is a slur against Darwin and has nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary theory).

The Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) is another organization that needs to go. They have no interest in ending homelessness in Mendo. Too many paychecks depend on this mess it would be devastating if we lose State and Federal grants and funding. Like I always told my co-workers,”If we did our jobs right, we would run out of work”.

By some strange sequence of events, I turned on the TV at almost exactly nine o’clock last night, just as The Big Chill was beginning on the local PBS station. I decided to watch it, though I have seen it at least 6 or 8 times, the first being in a movie theater back in 1983, when it was released and was the talk of the town in Sacramento. It was one of only four or five movies that I saw in theaters in my 19 years of living in that area. Watching movies on cable, later satellite, was so much easier, and the movies usually showed up there within a couple of years. I knew the movie was gonna be shown on the PBS Saturday night movie sometime this month but had decided to pass on it. So, I’m glad things happened as they did.

For the first time, I laughed throughout most of the movie, mostly at the silly, often sarcastic, lines the characters spoke. And the whole weird situation the characters found surrounding them was funny, too (and I wonder how Meg Tilly looks these days–omigod, I just looked her up and, of course, wish I hadn’t; the poor little thing is nearly 60 now!). I guess it’s been a long enough time, from the late 60s-early 70s to the present, for me to actually laugh about what was basically a sad situation overall at the time the characters were remembering. And of course, the movie had premiered near the beginning of the horrific rule of the monster, lousy actor, and FBI snitch, Ronald Reagan. It felt good to laugh. I much prefer David Sayles’s Return of the Secaucus 7, but I doubt that PBS will be showing it, ever. Kevin Costner, as always, was outstanding as the cadaver, one of his best roles ever as far as I am concerned.

Progressives, have you ever seen any more dirty, rotten, people than the Conservative Republicans? They are trying to blow up everything president Obama did. Makes me sick to my stomach. Mitch McConnell and the Senate are ridiculous idiots, or more than that.

It has to be done Dog, Obama was leading America down the wrong road. You know I was a big fan of his and I voted for him twice, but I saw the light and have corrected myself, hopefully you turn back someday too.

Nah, James, exactly the same road as your hero stumbles along as he drools from the corner of his mouth. In fact, Obama and the other despicable corporatist democrats paved the way for him. Even at that, Trump lost the election, saved only by the nondemocratic electoral college. The democrats are doing their best to ensure he gets a majority this time if the rag-tag bunch of wealth-serving idiots they have running for the office is any indication.